


Bittersweet Dreams

by paperxcrowns



Series: Dick and Dami Week 2021 [4]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Batman and Robin (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Damian Wayne Gets a Hug, Damian Wayne Needs a Hug, Damian Wayne is Robin, Dick Grayson is Batman, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Good Older Sibling Dick Grayson, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Ra's Al Ghul is a Terrible Person, Scarecrow's Fear Toxin (DCU), i speedwrote this bc my dumbass started writing this at 9pm, no editing we die like robins, this is rushed but it's 2am and im tired leave me alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 14:27:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29967747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperxcrowns/pseuds/paperxcrowns
Summary: Damian gets dosed with Fear Toxin and Dick helps him through it.prompt: "Please don't leave me"
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Series: Dick and Dami Week 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2199357
Comments: 3
Kudos: 87
Collections: DickAndDamiWeek2021





	Bittersweet Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> [roller skates in 2 hours and 20 minutes late with the prompt and a Starbucks drink]

“Robin, be careful,” Dick said, keeping to the shadows and watching Damian carefully. 

This would be his first run-in with Scarecrow. Dick had almost wanted to stop Damian from tagging with him on patrol, because Dick still wanted to escape the inevitable. Not just the fact that he was extremely unprepared for helping Damian if he got dosed with Fear Toxin, but also the fact that Dick hated it when _anyone_ got dosed. 

The visions were bad, but watching your loved ones hallucinate painful memories were almost as horrible.

“I will be fine, Batman,” Robin replied curtly.

He had a rebreather, Dick reassured himself. They both did. He’d double-checked. And triple checked. He had Alfred prepare the antidote in case either of them got dosed. 

He watched Damian crawl up the ladder on one side of the warehouse and watched him disappear through an open window before making his way on the other side of the warehouse. Box in Scarecrow, in a way.

Though, really, it was just going to be Dick handling things and Damian jumping in if needed. He was backup _only._

Dick just hoped the kid would actually listen to him this time without jumping into the fray without warning. _That_ would be a true recipe for a disaster Dick would much prefer to avoid.

Dick picked the window lock on one of the large panes lining the bottom level of the warehouse and climbed right through with ease.

He slipped past crates, following the sound of voices. One of them was hoarsely shouting out orders that Dick couldn’t make out just yet. The echo made whatever Crane said completely incomprehensible. 

Dick brushed his fingers against the rebreather hooked to his utility belt once again before peering over the crates.

Crane was standing in the center of the open space, watching attentively as masked people loaded crates into a truck. Crates probably filled with Fear Toxin. Or worse, a new variant of Fear Toxin that Crane had come up with. 

Either way, they would not be leaving this warehouse tonight, Dick was here to make sure of that.

“Crane,” he said, stepping out of the shadows.

He let the cape billow around him to the hand that was gripping his rebreather tightly. He didn’t want to get dosed. He  _ really _ didn’t. But he also didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of Damian getting dosed too and Dick being unable to help him. 

He glanced at the catwalks briefly, not once moving his head. He couldn’t see Damian, but Damian knew how to vanish. He was up there somewhere, watching the scene unfold.

“Batman,” Scarecrow exclaimed. “I was wondering when you’d show up.”

“I’m here. And you and I both know these crates aren’t leaving this warehouse.”

Scarecrow cackled, and no matter how many times Dick had heard it since his days as Robin, it still sent shivers crawling up his spine. 

“You misunderstand,” he said. “I’ll be leaving with my cargo. You and your little bird-- I’m sure he’s around here  _ somewhere-- _ will be a little too preoccupied to come after me.”

Dick's hands worked before his brain fully understood Scarecrow's implications.

He shoved his rebreather over his face just before he heard a hiss coming from the air vents. Fear Toxin.

Scarecrow scoffed and easily stepped to the side to avoid Dick's right hook. 

He tutted. "Why are you bothering with me?" he asked. "Does the little bird know what's in the vents?"

Robin.

_ Robin. _

Dick growled, landing one hit directly in Scarecrow's stomach before bolting for the staircase.

He turned his comms on. "Oracle!" he yelled.

There was a startled yelp on the other end.

"Dick, what the hell--"

"Tell Spoiler to go after Scarecrow and the new shipment of Fear Toxin," Dick snapped. He'd apologize for startling Babs later. "Robin is down."

Babs swore under her breath. "10-4, Batman," she said before the line went dead again.

Dick made it to the catwalks, cursing Scarecrow and his stupid drug as the truck engines roared out of the warehouse, leaving Dick in complete silence.

He searched everywhere, shining his flashlight at dark shadows, peering behind crates, looking up at the rafters and light fixtures.

He became more and more frantic the further along the catwalks he went and still couldn't find Damian.

Damian, raised by the League of Assassins and carrying his own fair share of trauma, had just been hit with high amounts of Fear Toxin and Dick  _ couldn't find him. _

"Robin?" he called. "Robin, it's Batman. Can you-- can you tell me where you are? We'll get you back to the Batcave, okay?"

Dick caught movement off to his left and almost bolted in that direction. Startling Damian was probably the worst possible thing he could do.

He slowly made his way around a support beam and found Damian crouched on the ground, his hands gripping his shaking arms tightly, his head bowed and his rebreather lying forgotten on the ground.

That wasn't good.

Dick could still hear the gas hissing through the vents. 

Damian was still breathing in Fear Toxin.

"Shit."

Dick knelt next to Damian and carefully tapped his shoulder. In the few months they had been partners, Dick had silently picked up small details, dos and don'ts. Damian didn't like being cushy by surprise. He liked to see things coming, including hugs or small touches from Dick.

That didn't stop him from flinching violently away from Dick.

"No," he muttered, his eyes glazed and far away. "No. Please, I'm sorry."

Damian never looked more his age than he did now, curled in a shadowy corner of the warehouse, scared of something his mind was fabricating. No matter how strong and capable he was, Damian was still only ten years old. 

Dick rested both hands on Damian's shoulders and attempted to meet his eyes. He forced a smile. 

"You ready to go home, kiddo?" he asked. 

Damian shrunk in on himself. “No, please.” he tried to push Dick’s hands off of his shoulders frantically. “Please, I’m sorry. I won’t-- I won’t do it again.”

Dick ignored his heart breaking in two and gathered Damian up in his arms. He’d wanted to take Damian to that 24 hour diner that sold amazing ice cream after patrol.

He settled for hugging Damian closer to himself as he quickly made his way out of the warehouse. He hoped Spoiler foiled Scarecrow’s plans. He really hoped she would send him back to Arkham for him.

* * *

Damian started crying halfway back to the Cave.

Dick only noticed when the quiet pleading and soft whimpers tampered off, replaced by hitched gasps. 

Dick immediately stopped looking through his belt for antidote or morphine or anything to make Damian feel even just a little better.

He grabbed Damian’s hand. It was the wrong thing to do.

Damian yelled and tugged his hand free, pure terror in his eyes as he pushed himself back. He pressed himself as far away from Dick as he physically could, his back pressed against the passenger door.

He was screaming now, a few tears slipping past the mask and dripping down his cheeks. Every scream was a rusty knife to Dick’s heart.

“Damian,” he said, reaching for his hands gently. “Daian, please. Damian, I promise you’re okay. You’re with me, remember? I’m your-- I’m your brother. We’re Batman and Robin. We were gonna get ice cream. Wherever you are, it’s not real, Dames.”

It didn’t help. Words didn’t do anything against the powerful hallucinogens in Scarecrow’s toxin. Hugging someone or even just touching them could often make the situation even worse.

“No, I’m sorry!” Damian screamed, his chest heaving. “Please don’t send me away.”

Dick had long since taken off the cowl-- it was too menacing for someone dosed with Fear Toxin. 

Dick wanted to hold Damian. He wanted to hug him close and press his face into his hair and tell him he would be fine. He wanted Damian to believe him when he told him things would be fine and that this wasn’t real. He wanted to make Damian stop seeing him or Bruce or  _ whoever _ was sending him away.

Because he wanted to make Damian believe that he would never let that happen.

“I will never send you away,” Dick said, letting his hands over over Damian’s curled fists. 

Dick had already had to physically restrain Damian from scratching at his arms before he’d managed to wrestle him inside the car.

Damian was openly crying and screaming, either screaming at Bruce or Alfred or Dick to come back, or sometimes at Ra’s, begging him to stop. 

Dick kept talking the whole time, trying to calm him down, convince hm it wasn’t real, right up until the Batmobile pulled up in the Batcave and Alfred opened the driver’s door.

He took in Damian’s state and Dick’s exhausted face and muttered, “oh my,” before allowing Dick to step out of the car.

“I have the antidote here, Master Dick,”Alfred said, following Dick to the passenger dooor. 

Dick opened the passenger door and caught Damian when he fell right out. He yelped and struggled, but Dick didn’t let him go. Not even when Damian landed kicks and punches that would definitely bruise, screaming at the top of his lungs to let him go, to leave him alone, to let him go back home.

Dick forced Damian onto a bed in the medbay and rolled up his sleeve for Alfred to give him the shot.

“It’s okay,” Dick said softly, holding Damian’s arm still while the kid fought him ferociouly, as if Dick was going to hurt him. “It’ll be over soon, yeah? We’ll watch movies tomorrow, does that sound good?”

Alfred inserted the needle while Damians still jerked weakly. 

“We could watch oldies,” Dick went on. “Those are always fun to watch. Bruce has the whole collection of the Dick Van Dyke show on CD.”

Damian probably wasn’t hearing a single word Dick was saying, but that was okay. Dick was mostly telling them to himself, to reassure himself and calm himself down.

Alfred pulled the needle out and Damian went limp in Dick’s arms almost immediately, his hands reaching up to hug him, face pressing into the hard Kevlar of his suit and hands fisted in his cape.

Dick started to pull away, hoping to at least take off the suit and wrestling Damian out of his, but Damian squeezed him harder when Dick started to move away.

Damian curled his fists into Dick’s undershirt. “Please don’t leave me,” he murmured. “Please--”

Dick carefully threaded his fingers through Damian’s hair. “I won’t, Damian. I’ll never leave you.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr :)](https://blas-ph-emy.tumblr.com/)


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